A Big Ten/SEC College Football Playoff takeover is inevitable, but what if it’s actually the best solution?

So, what’s your favorite season of the 12-team College Football Playoff? Was it the 2024 season, or will it be 2025?

Those look like your only options right now. There’s long been speculation about the CFP expanding to 14 or 16 teams as early as 2026, with the Big Ten and SEC slowly beating the drum of automatic bids for their leagues over the last year. It seems we’re closer to that becoming a reality. According to Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports, it’s a matter of when, not if, we see a further expanded field that will include four automatic berths for both the Big Ten and SEC.

As for the rest of the conferences: the ACC and Big 12 will likely each get two auto bids, with the top Group of Five champion and Notre Dame (provided the latter finishes ranked high enough) rounding out the field. If you’re good at math, you may notice that adds up to 14 teams! That means if the CFP expands to 14, there may be some seasons in which it doesn’t include a single at-large team. 

Notre Dame, by the way, has finished outside the top 14 of the final CFP Rankings five times (2014, 2016, 2019, 2022, 2023) since they were introduced in 2014. 

Other details need to be ironed out, too, like how the expanded field will impact conference championship games and where the games will be played. However, I’m sure the Big Ten and SEC will let us all know what decisions they make along the way, and I bet they’ll give the other leagues a heads up before going public.

But while this change is one that seems to rankle a lot of college football fans, it’s ironically one of the few things about this whole debacle I find appealing.

I don’t like the expanded playoff at all. I watch the games, and they’re fun, but I don’t think it’s the best way to determine the…

Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/a-big-tensec-college-football-playoff-takeover-is-inevitable-but-what-if-its-actually-the-best-solution/

Author : Tom Fornelli

Publish date : 2025-02-17 21:52:00

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